CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP)—Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s son, whose father faces a second hearing before a New York court Thursday, told AFP he trusts the US legal system but that the case was tainted by his parents’ “kidnapping.”

“We trust in the legal system of the United States,” Nicolas Maduro Guerra, a lawmaker who is also known as “Nicolasito,” or “Little Nicolas,” said in Caracas.

But he added: “This trial has vestiges of illegitimacy from the start, because of the capture, the kidnapping, of an elected president in a military operation.”

He said his father had “worldwide immunity” under international law, as he joined hundreds of Maduro supporters in a Caracas square where a giant screen carried live coverage of court proceedings.

“Freedom for Cilia and Nicolas!” chanted the crowd.

Maduro and wife Cilia Flores — Nicolasito’s step-mother — have been held in a Brooklyn jail for almost three months, after American commandos snatched the pair from their compound in Caracas in a nighttime raid in January.

The brazen operation deposed the strongman who had led Venezuela since 2013, and has since forced the oil-rich country to largely bend to US President Donald Trump’s will.

Maduro has declared himself a “prisoner of war” and pleaded not guilty to the four counts he faces: “narco-terrorism” conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Trump said Thursday that “other cases are going to be brought” against Maduro, without giving more details.